


The Revery Alone Will Do

by kuumai



Series: Gentron Week 2020 [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Keith (Voltron) was Raised by the Blade of Marmora, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27501064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuumai/pseuds/kuumai
Summary: The Blade of Marmora sends Keith to infiltrate Emperor Zarkon's castle and assassinate Prince Lotor. Keith does not find quite what he expected.
Relationships: Keith & Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Gentron Week 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863325
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	The Revery Alone Will Do

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Fairy Tales/Fantasy

Keith is not the most patient of beings, so he grows a bit restless while waiting for Prince Lotor to return to his quarters. Nonetheless, he remains crouched in the corner of the prince’s bedchamber for most of the day. He must stay completely still, or he risks losing the invisibility charm. Charms are difficult to come by since the eradication of the Alteans, the only known magical beings, by Zarkon’s empire. 

Some hours into Keith’s vigil, once the sun has set and there is no light coming through the window from which Keith snuck into the room, he hears the door open, and he snaps to attention, ready to complete his mission. But it’s only a servant boy come to light the fireplace.

Keith calms slightly, but keeps his breathing silent. The boy doesn’t see him, of course, and leaves the room swiftly. His wait for the prince continues. 

There is nothing to do but inspect the surprisingly sparse decor, and Keith is counting the planks of wood that make up the floor when the doorknob turns once again.

This time, it is Prince Lotor, and Keith is beyond elated. Finally, something interesting to do.

The man is broad-shouldered, white hair shorn close to his scalp. He’s dressed in all black, as he always is when he fights in the Royal Coliseum, and he wears a mask that covers nearly as much of his face as Keith’s does, only revealing the purple skin around his eyes. He was attacked with magic as a child, and supposedly his face was so greatly disfigured that he refuses to let anyone see it.

Keith has always been a supporter of the theory that Lotor’s injury is a fictional story told to increase the public’s fear of magic and justify the Altean genocide, but that may be due to the fact that Keith assumes everything Zarkon’s empire says is propaganda. 

Lotor sinks into an armchair facing away from Keith and covers his face with his hands, not bothering to remove the mask. He’s making Keith’s mission almost too easy.

Silent as ever, Keith draws his dagger from where it’s strapped to his calf and stands. He feels a shiver pass over him that indicates that the invisibility charm has fallen away, but it doesn’t matter. Lotor isn’t looking at him anyway. 

Keith approaches slowly, wondering if he might be able to slit Lotor’s throat before he even realizes that Keith is there. 

No such luck. When Keith is almost close enough to attack, the prince’s head shoots up, and he darts out of the chair and out of Keith’s reach. 

They stand silently for a moment before Keith lunges across the room to attack. Lotor dodges easily. 

Keith is skilled and has a weapon, but Lotor is surprisingly agile. Keith used to suspect that Lotor’s fights in the coliseum are all staged to intimidate onlookers, but Lotor makes it abundantly clear that he can hold his own in combat. 

Keith makes several slashes at Lotor, all of which he dodges. Even though Keith has the dagger, Lotor manages to back him against a wall, and when Keith slashes at him again, he grabs Keith’s wrists. Keith thrashes against the prince’s hold, but to no avail.

Lotor slams the hand with which Keith is holding the knife against the wall, hard, and Keith grits his teeth. When he does it a second time, Keith yelps at the pain and reflexively opens his fist. His dagger clatters to the ground. 

He kicks at Lotor’s stomach, and Lotor loosens his grip enough that Keith can drop to the ground and dart toward his knife. 

He’s almost close enough to grab it when Lotor pins him to the ground on his back. Keith is strong, but not strong enough to throw the prince’s entire body weight. He struggles regardless. 

“Don’t you have soldiers to protect you?” Keith growls. They’ve made quite a ruckus, so he’s surprised no guards have stormed into the room. 

Lotor laughs, short and cynical, and his voice is muffled by the mask. “Don’t you know who I am?” 

“I know you’re a murderer.” 

Lotor’s eyebrows quirk. “Aren’t you one too?”

The prince removes one of his hands from Keith’s shoulders and reaches past Keith’s hood pulling his mask away. Keith snarls at him, and his face must be pretty intimidating, because Lotor’s eyes widen and his grip goes slack. 

Keith takes advantage of his surprise and flips Lotor onto his back. For some reason, Lotor doesn’t fight it. 

“You’re human?” Lotor asks, as if spitting made-up words will distract Keith from his mission.

Keith sits on Lotor’s chest and reaches past him to grab the dagger. Lotor continues to ramble nonsense. 

“You must go warn Earth that Zarkon—”

Keith positions the knife above Lotor’s throat when he notices that Lotor’s mask has slipped to the side slightly, revealing his ears. 

His ears are round. 

Startled, Keith holds his dagger in place and uses his free hand to undo the buckles on either side of the mask and pull it away. 

Aside from the purple skin around Lotor’s eyes, the rest of his face is nearly the same color as Keith’s. He has a scar across his nose, but there’s no evidence of a magical attack that would make him unfit for the public to see. 

“You’re not purple?” Keith says, incredulous. “What—did the magic change your skin color?” Even as he says this, he knows that it would be quite a coincidence for a magical attack to make the prince look so similar to Keith. 

“No! I’m not Galra!” he exclaims, understandably anxious about the weapon at his throat. “I’m not actually Lotor!”

And that… Keith doesn’t know what sort of explanation he was expecting, but that was not it. 

“Zarkon captured me years ago and forced me to act as the prince and to fight in the Royal Coliseum. Lotor died long before I came here. I’m actually from Earth.”

“You make no sense. No one can be ‘from earth.’ People aren’t made of soil.”

“No, the island called Earth. I’m from there, like all humans.”

“There’s no way that’s real,” Keith says “What kind of island would name itself after dirt? I’ve never heard of this ‘Earth.’”

Not-Lotor stares up at him in confusion. “But aren’t you human? Aren’t all humans from Earth?”

And there was the reason Keith hasn’t already killed him: because Keith doesn’t know who his parents were or what non-Galra species gave him his looks, and he has never before seen anyone who looks like him. 

At his silence, Not-Lotor sighs. “Okay, you don’t have to believe me. I may not be the prince you were sent here to kill, but I deserve it all the same for the blood on my hands. But if you have any way to contact another human, please warn them that Zarkon knows about Earth, and he will take over.”

Keith holds still for a moment longer, and the man’s eyes fall shut, as if he’s surrendering to his fate. 

Sheathing his weapon, Keith stands. “Why don’t you come with me and warn them yourself?”

This is such a bad idea. Why does Keith always have such bad ideas?

The man sits up and chuckles, but his shoulders are shaking with relief. “You think I haven’t tried to sneak out already? If I open the door or the window, it triggers an alarm, and when they catch me, it’s not pretty.”

“How do you think I got here in the first place?” Keith grabs his mask off the floor and straps it into place. “We’ll go out through the window.”

The man—Shiro, he calls himself—doesn’t take too much convincing, but he does ask Keith to let him change before they leave. His mask and monochrome outfit would be far too noticeable. Shiro quickly pulls an unassuming tunic and pants from the wardrobe and laces up a pair of brown boots. Keith watches, amused, as Shiro efficiently digs through a drawer and pulls out a scarf to wrap around his head in place of the mask. 

Once Shiro is ready, Keith pushes the window open and insists that Shiro climb down the rope first. Shiro takes one look out of the window at the ground a couple stories below and turns back to Keith in alarm. 

“Can’t you see how many guards there are down there?” he says. 

“They’re with me. Don’t worry about them,” Keith replies. All of the nearby guards are undercover members of the Blade of Marmora, but he’s trying to keep the amount of information he spills to Shiro at a minimum.

Shiro gives him a suspicious look but begins his descent regardless. Keith follows him.

Almost as soon as Keith’s feet hit the cobbled ground below Shiro’s room, one of the Blades on the inside cuts the rope, and Keith catches it so it doesn’t make noise hitting the ground. 

One of the guards on the ground approaches them, and Shiro steps back and braces himself for a fight. Keith just sighs and begins wrapping the rope in a coil to make it easier to carry. 

“Who is this?” the guard—Thace in disguise—hisses at Keith, waving an accusatory hand at Shiro.

“Hey, Keith. I’m pleased you didn’t die, Keith. Congratulations on not getting captured by Zarkon, Keith,” Keith mocks under his breath. 

Thace ignores him. “It was so simple. Get in, get rid of Lotor, get out. Wait, is this—?”

“Lotor is dead,” says Keith. 

“Then who—?”

“This is Shiro. He was a prisoner here. We’re going to take him to Kolivan, and he’ll explain everything.”

Thace turns to Shiro and inspects him closely. Between the darkness of the night and Shiro’s headscarf, Keith can’t make out Shiro’s expression, but he imagines he’s uncomfortable. Finally, Thace returns his attention to Keith. “Bringing a random Galra from Zarkon’s castle to Kolivan is a major breach of security.”

“He’s not Galra. At least not full-blooded.”

“That wasn’t my point. No matter who he is, it’s still dangerous.”

“I know it wasn’t your point, just—look at his ears!”

Keith heaves the coil of rope over his shoulder and motions at Shiro, who looks at him in confusion. Keith nods to him, and he hesitates only briefly before tugging his scarf back to reveal one of his ears. 

Thace inhales audibly. 

“He looks like me,” says Keith. “He’s coming with us.”

Thace remains silent. 

“At this point, the least dangerous thing we can do is bring him with us,” Keith insists. “If he’s with us, he can’t tell anyone else whatever he already knows. And we’ve already spent far too long standing around out here. The others can’t cover for us for much longer. Regris is waiting.” 

Thace sighs. “Fine.” He begins down the stone path toward their escape route in the sewers.

Keith gestures for Shiro to follow, and they trail behind Thace. 

After a moment, Thace stops and pulls aside a loose stone in the ground. Beneath is a ladder leading down to the sewer system. 

“Took you long enough,” Regris says from within, his voice echoing slightly.. 

For the first time, Thace addresses Shiro directly. “You go down first,” he says gruffly. Then, to Regris, he says, “Don’t hurt this one. Keith will explain who he is in a tick.”

Shiro visibly swallows, but does as he’s told and heads down the ladder. Keith steps in after him. 

“Hey,” whispers Thace, still crouched above the entrance. 

Keith pauses his descent. “Yeah?”

“Kolivan is going to be mad at you,” Thace says.

“Believe me. I know.”

That’s about as close to a goodbye as Keith is going to get from Thace, so he continues down the ladder. Thace replaces the stone above him, and Keith is left alone with Regris and Shiro.

Kolivan is going to be  _ so  _ mad at him. 

**Author's Note:**

> I realize that there’s a very limited amount of fantasy in this, even though that was… literally the prompt…. Basically, I planned out quite a bit more plot in this world but the prospect of actually writing any more of it is seeming less and less likely. But we shall see!


End file.
